StickyMicky

Had a woman call in this morning while i was eating my egg butty


Silver Civic Type R
Spray painted all over it by vandals, on every pannel bar the front bumper/roof, they were even kind enough to spray her windows/rear lights


I try some non agressive tar and glue remover on a section with no results, so i tried a smidge of paint thinners, this removed it.

To be honest i can see this job being a totall and utter nightmare, and while i have no work booked in for the day, i am not feeling this job at all, i did feel sorry for her as she was quite upset, and reasonably fit so i told her i could probably remove the paint from the windows + bodywork for around 35quid, although i could not do the plastics and thinners tends to mess them up.

This quote was far to expensive apparently

She buggered off in a huff


And then returned triumphantly around 10 mins back and said this....

"How much were you going to charge me again ?
"A bloke who i work with did it for free with some Cillit-Bang and a scouring pad"




Well hardy-doodle-me
The car looks a right state now

Snazy

lol good luck to her haha

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

Does she work with Barry Scott by any chance?

borderlinechris

iTrader: (5)

BANG!! and the paintworks gone.......

Dedrater

Was she anything to do with this clownwatch blog?

stilover

£35? I'd have said that was cheap myself. Considering a respray would cost many many times that.

StickyMicky

Damn, i wish i had of said that to her

dpb

What a silly cow

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

I hoped you laughed at her as she walked away Mick.

Leslie

She was silly alright, but I still feel sorry for her having had her car vandalised like that. All this petty violence and destruction is getting worse and worse. About time the authorities actually did something constriuctive to protect the people.

Les

Simon C

There was a couple of 4x4's covered in tar on detailing world. She would have hated to see the bill for that job!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

£35 sounds like a very fair price for the work you would have had to do. Cannot believe she complained at that As for Cillit Bang, I hope she realises that she has lost more than that in the resale price of her car.

StickyMicky

£35 is toooo cheap IMO, but like i said, i felt a little sorry for her.


I expected the paint to come off the windows fine, a simple scraper blade will have done this with no damage.

The body work i was expecting to have to use a rag + thinners and VERY lightly rub the paint away, constantly washing it off with water to prevent any possible damage to the clearcoat surface, kinda like a "rub a little, double check, rub a little"

The whole lot would have then needed a polish/wax to make it presentable, i did pre warn her that it was a little dangerous which IMHO it is.

You just can not please some folk.
She needs a respray now, i hope her husband is a little more understanding no doubt her fella will turn up tomorrow to price up a full machine polish

Tidgy

dont forget to add a few hunded quid extra justf or the hassel lol

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

TBH, her attitude to you perhaps explains WHY the car got done in the first place.

And NO, I'm NOT condoning it

Tidgy

that was my first thought as well

rbaz

iTrader: (1)

High power pressure washer should have removed it

StickyMicky

It never removes the over spray from my own car after a paint job

It was paint mate, not custard

Paulo P

iTrader: (42)

You can't help some people £35 is a bargain!!!! It'll cost her more than that to sort the paintwork out from where he's f*cked it up

PaulC72

<shocked>




£35....she could have done it for free with Cillit Ba....oh she did ;-)

DJ_Jon

iTrader: (7)

What a silly beehatch, £35 is very reasonable indeed. The fact she managed to get dome bloke at work to do it for her, probably by turning on the waterworks, says it all. She probably doesn't think there is anything wrong with the paintwork now. I suspect she will get a shock when she comes to sell it.

Jimpreza

Do you own a car detailing business Micky? I wouldn't know where to go if my car was vandalised with spray paint.

StickyMicky

I don`t really like the term "detailer" and much prefer "valeting"

Hence why my quote was not £3500 for the same job
But yeah i do have my hand in the car cleaning pot although after the past 18 or so months, i am beginning to think i might be better of moving elsewhere as the market is not being very kind to me at all

Car wash volumes = pretty much back where they should be pre credit crunch/recession.
Valeting work = dire, really bad, my valeting supplier was telling me the other day, that things have gotten so bad, that even the bull****ters who usually lie through there teeth and tell tales of making millions of pounds, have admitted that it has all went **** up

Here is hoping 2010 is a little better

GC8

I wondered what was going on with car washes after you said it had gone quiet. An IMO near me closed due to the downturn, but the site re-opened with a load of Fonzie look-a-likes charging £4 more for a dodgy handwash and a wipe over with a mangled gritty rag: and people were queueing up!

rbaz

iTrader: (1)

It would remove most if not all with the right jet.
Have you never blasted paint off things that havent been rubbed down properly?
Black plastics and glass would definably be no problem.
Maybe you need a better pressure washer

Luan Pra bang

Yep agree of thats her attitide then she probably deserved it, did she expect you to work for free ?

StickyMicky

LOTS!!! of shenanigans have been going on since the recession hit.

UPDATE 2-UK judge approves landmark Car Wash restructuring | Reuters

It was splashed all over the financials for a while, they have got rid of a few bad sites that were not making any money, and killed the new site building program from 50 new sites per year, to around 5.

I was supposed to have a brand new site built for me last summer
On the plus side, because the banks basically siezed control of the company, they have chucked a rather large pot of cash into the system for refurbishments for older sites.

Had all my shutters sorted out last week, had a bloke in today to see about replacing some damaged cladding, and all my external signs are being replaced (this should have been done on monday tbh)

We suspect the banks are tarting us up to flip/flog us on (us ground troops dont get told **** all ) and make a pretty penny, they seam to have gotten us for a bargain price considering what the business was worth pre recession

StickyMicky

My pressure washers (all 3 of them) are all 3 phase industrial powered monsters, that are "rather" expensive (none of this mass market £300 "but itz got 110 bar" karcher crap)

The motor i have just replaced on one of them cost me about the same as one of them complete "pro" karcher things

My equipment is up to the task

GC8

What confused me Mick, was that no one would pay for a £1:20 machine car wash, that wont damage their paint; but theyll pay at least 5x as much for a handwash thatll certainly damage their paint.

Id sooner pay £1:20 twice a week do a decent local franchisee, than a load of spurious looking Eastern Europeans: is it me?

StickyMicky

I used to avoid posts like this as its usually in best interests to keep them private, but when it has been splashed all over the courts and financials, its just confirming what has happened

Its not a problem with people avoiding machine washes per say, it is more a problem with people avoiding all washes, tightening the belts, loads of handwashes are going under as well.

Its like i said about 18 months ago, as soon as the credit crunch waffle started in the press, we saw carwash takings dive, by more then half, we noticed the effects instantly as people did the knee jerk reaction to what the press were spoon feeding them, what is intresting is that the valeting side did not crash for a while, it just tailed off nice and smoothly, probably because people were still shifting a lot of used cars about, we have not done a traders car since about august last year, and we did a reasonable amount of them, loads of know it alls (including on here) claimed this crash we saw was all utter twaddle, but the figures speak for themselves, from a first half of the year that saw us on track to beat the previous (as per all previous years) to finishing up the year around 24% down on car wash commision and halved on the seperate valeting side of things , i believe the wash group as a whole may have been closer to 40% (we personally held onto more punters then most lol!)

When i calc`d up last month we were up 4% on the previous year so far, so the growth is happening, but still has a way to go.

All my local mates in my position had the same`ish results, these £1.20 - £7.00 washes just dried up, knock on effect with people who we pay, staff and suppliers, people lost jobs, i slashed staff myself, hell the management company even bladdered the current MD of the entire Uk operation the newest lad i have took on comes to me from a mechanical wash that broke down, the owners could not afford to fix it due to low trade, they converted it into a hand wash and it went bust within 6 months!

Like i say, it is back on the rise, and we are about to enter our busy season as soon as the road gritters get out and dust the roads with cash, errr i mean road salt.


At one point i did suspect the whole lot might have came crashing down, especially when the big banks started wanting money back, 350million seams like a lot of debt, but i remember rightly, the first 6 months of last year leading up the the credit crunch brought them in around 58million anyway, so nobody was bothered about the debt as it was classed as easily sustainable.

Quite ironic that it seamed like the banks getting itchy feet and wanting some cash back got us into this mess, and now they magically have claimed power over us for a knock down bargain price, and appear to be tarting us up to flog on for some profit.

They know how to rape the food trough !